May 28, 2010

Out of all the insane and highly impractical ideas and dreams I have in life, I am not very sure about this one. I thought maybe (probability 0.25), well maybe (probability 0.001) , I could think of taking a shot at Mt.Everest after like 15 years. I am not sure of this , but I have these plans , really over-the-top plans of doing things because mediocrity has sucked in almost everything except this great nature's erection. Its almost like each one of us , even the most douche-bag of an engineering graduate would think of becoming a CEO of some company one day. Its not always possible for them, then of-course, many of these CEO-cum-hippie-culture-inflicted-wannabe's would open their own firms and put themselves on the top just to claim a dream they could never have.

So why Mt. Everest? why not just go to Simla and come back from an over-used tourist dust-bag (this when I heard about 5 Bihar dudes landing up in Simla aspiring to start a Maoist movement :\ , how lame) or go to Rohtang (orgasmic hill-station for all north indians) and take pleasure in aunties falling in the desperate attempt to try out their newly hired eskimo clothes and shoes on smooth ice. But I don't want to, because its plain and blatant , mediocrity sucks. Well, it happens with me. Almost 33% of times, I end up knowing that people have already done what I had planned to be totally cool and *new*, this world is that fast. So when I was a kid, fed-up of all the mediocrity, I decided I would grow up to be someone that everyone else couldn't be. I grew up, and observed everyone is someone that everyone else can't be. This world is that sucker-ty!

So I have dropped a lot of super-awesome plans along the way , like the Mt.Everest one. This came about when I read about this 13 year old boy called Jordon Romero who climbed Mt.Everest. Ok cool ! , but what was I doing when I was 13? , I was probably looking forward to an awesome 5 year puberty plan and maybe having a totally-not-feasible crush on a girl in my class.... If the Jordon case wasn't enough , take this , totally illiterate, less than quarter-awesome and ugly-looking-but-smarter-than-Shrek Apa Sherpa climbed the Everest 20 times , 20 times!! , that is 5 times more than I triumphed pahadi during my entire BITSian life :\ ..

If I had been preparing for IITJEE 2012 , I would have given it up already. Partly because I would have died after completing my first semester,thanks to the Mayan Calendar :\ .. and secondly because of this homie-boy (thanks to Jay-Z) named Sahal Kaushik , this dude is 14 year old and has cleared IIT this year. Ok super-awesome, but what was I doing when I was 14? I was probably now left with 4 more years of puberty plan and still wondering whether I should go for another girl or still not give up on her.... :\ , pretty mundane eh? .. So just like this, I have been dropping plans. Perhaps Everest still seems feasible , maybe I would kill the Sherpa and climb it 21 times to atleast get my name in the newspapers, or maybe get my name as many times as possible to beat Arindam Choudhary ...who knows.. :\

The point is not how many times I had to give up my plans , but the number of times I learnt the same thing: 'any age is old-enough to start something new' . Why not go out in the sun and start practicing your favorite sport now? Why not take up that book you always wanted to read now? Why not look good today because you would never look this awesome one day after now? Why not start today? Don't be a douche-bag ..! .. Start early , procrastinate later.

May 2, 2010

Its not easy to dodge the piranhas. Piranhas are known to have voracious appetites for meat and can smell blood from miles in slow current waters. So when you are crossing a river which are inhabited by these ugly looking all-teeth-no-brain fishes , the only way you can escape them is by dodging them, or eat them alive which is a not-so-good idea since they move around in kick-ass gangs who can do anything for each other. Famous ways of dodging include throwing a lump of meat into the other side of the waters , so that while the piranhas are busy eating , you can cross the waters on your side. Another way which requires some skill is to just cross the river with two things in mind : you shouldn't have any wounds on your body and your body movements need to be smooth. Piranhas can sense wounds on any god-damn alive thing and they just love to complete rip you off in minutes if not seconds...And ofcourse the best way to dodge is to have a boat. :\

Look around you , your life is like these slow-moving South American waters with Piranhas all around.And all you have to do is to dodge them.Piranhas in your life can come around in the form of most stupidest of the days, over-sleeping-n-missing a test day , bad weather days and that-guy/girl-needs-an-attitude-check-or-else-I-will-kill-him/her ways.

BITS has taught me some amazing things , including how to dodge-the-piranhas , which even the most attentive of my teachers here never would have noticed. All the while they were just going over and over the most impractical theoretical fast-forwarded equations , they were telling me how to dodge all that while in the class and still make a decent grade by doing it all in one night before the exam. Or if you're super-afraid of crossing the river , you can request a make-up in which case you have the option of crossing other rivers with more or lesser number of piranhas, but which one? you never know... And then there are always ways to copy others who know dodging-the-piranhas in case you are not game enough. In this case the ghotus are the obvious choice ...Ghotus are those people who will cross all those rivers that have been asked to cross the previous years to make sure they cross it smoothly this year too !!! Teachers love them.

Dodging also implies avoiding the piranhas at all , take alternative paths , not always the waters. Being with the right kind of people and doing the right kind of things , to make sure you feel good always. I have loved doing it , doing just the right things. One amazing thing here in BITS is that you can keep doing your favorite things over and over again , no matter how lame or useless, you will get the friends to do it and that kills the guilt part for ever!... Not to forget, I have met some of the most amazing people here and thanks to my inclination to imitate qualities , this journey has definitely made me someone I wasn't before I got here.

Then everyone has their own ways of dodging , which are not textbook, just skill .Hence comes the dance part, my favorite way of telling the Piranhas to be careful when they bring my name up.I just love to own those few amazing seconds on the stage. I have met people who think all this dance stuff is so over-rated. But frankly, it deserves to be. After some crappy months, if you can just go on-stage and deliver a crowd-puller , it pays for all your sins. I have loved performing here in BITS more than I used to do earlier. And because of no formal training at all , I have always despised the idea of learning the steps to a dance number and then performing it on stage , it makes dance so much seem like an exam and less of an art. Probably one of the reasons , I never wanted to join the dance club. And I just love it when you have a pedigree of performances ,and people know you for something and they expect something better than what they saw last time. Believe me I have two habits any dancer shouldn't have, I never practice my steps before a performance and I have a dance-ego.So, the trick lies in something else, which I won't disclose here. One of my favorite performances would be the last one , just because it was a total impromptu, I love it when all you do is respond to the music and this amazing things remains an art. And really , I just want to thank all those people who have loved to see me perform , thats the reason I keep doing it once every year :) ..not that I have to prove something.

Another thing BITS has taught me is how to be friend with the piranhas. You know all those people you thought were so much thadi 'n stuff or total idiots, then you realize they were actually one of the nicest! . Especially in the my psenti-sem, I have met people who I would have rarely thought of ever going along with, I have done things I have always wanted to do. I have been so much accustomed to dealing with awkward situations than ever before, that things ever rarely upset me.

... The most intriguing part is I hardly remember what kind of person I was before I came here, you know when you've been crossing too many rivers , you hardly remember the first few ones!.. Five years here and its a complete new life after this, this system changes you so much , its hard to get back. I sincerely thought of myself as a total 'geek' before I landed here who could do a bit of this and that. But this pilani life completely changed me , not that now I have super-mutant powers but I have super awesome friends whom I can die for.

Now that this part of the life is almost over , which was better any of the Government's 5 year plans! : ) .. I seriously imagine , like any other BITSian , what would it be like waking up one morning and knowing you won't be waking up in your old-adorable-antique hostel room ever again, its a feeling I would certainly hate to have....and this would be the hardest one to dodge for sure!